Doctor Always On Call: The Life of Robert H. Morris, M.D. as Told to His Son, Robert H. Morris II

By Robert H. Morris

Robert Morris II recorded eight hours of interviews with his father, Robert Morris, MD (1904-1990), from which he drafted an autobiography and presented it to his dad on his 85th birthday. Until Dr. Morris’ death 15 months later, they collaborated to correct and add to the original memories. Dr. Morris’ career was unique in several ways: He dropped out of medical school twice, returning to farming, then vowed that he’d become a doctor or die. The third time in medical school, he led his class most quarters. Marrying and nurse and settling in the village of Medina (pop. 400) in 1935, his practice and reputation—especially as a diagnostician—grew until his death. He made home visits extending to five counties, the last doctor to do so in this area, delivering some 2000 babies in the home, while also serving in four hospitals. He was a devout Christian and lay leader in his church. Two of his daughters married doctors, two others became career teachers who also married teachers, and his son had a varied career, ending as a writer. Dr. Morris tells both painful and humorous stories about his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Apr 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9780310103844

Robert H. Morris

Robert Hunt Morris, II, a lifelong spiritual seeker, encountered Jesus at age nine. He left orthodox Christianity in his 20s, but never lost his love of Jesus. He was an active Quaker for 15 years, explored Eastern religions, and enjoys woodworking, writing, and editing. He married Jeanne Elizabeth Sokol, to whom three children were born. They lived from New York City to Oklahoma, and finally Tennessee in 1996. Today he is active in an evangelical United Methodist church

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PART I

JOURNEY

THROUGH LIFE

CHAPTER 1

FAMILY BACKGROUND

I was born in the little town of Gibson, in Gibson County, Tennessee, on September 26, 1904, my parents being Joseph Edward Morris and Bernice Hunt Morris. My father’s parents were John Peter Morris and Sarah Chandler Morris; my mother’s parents were Dr. Robert Hardy Hunt and Lisa Hurt Hunt.¹ I do not know when my ancestors first settled in Gibson County, but understand that they originally came from North Carolina to the vicinity of what today is Eldad, Tennessee. I believe Dr. Hunt’s parents had nine children: my great-uncles John, Wash, Matt, Joe, Elbert, and Willis, Hardy, and my great-aunts Fanny and Emma.

Most of my relatives were farmers. Elbert and Joe Hunt went out to Texas and homesteaded in what became Hunt County, and I never did see Uncle Elbert again. Uncle Joe came back one time on a visit, but I never saw any of his family. I heard that Elbert had 13 sons and that he died from sepsis (a putrefying infection) after skinning his heel on a plow. I think Uncle Joe had two sons—one who became a rancher and one who became a banker—and that they both lived in or around Palestine, Texas. Dr. Hunt’s other brothers all stayed in West Tennessee.

Dr. Hunt    When the Civil War came, Joe and Matt, and maybe John and Wash too, joined the Confederate army. But my grandfather, Robert Hardy Hunt, was only 16 and still at home when the Yankees came to their farm, taking their feed and their best horses, leaving only their sorriest animals behind. The soldiers talked rough to his mother and father, provoking Robert Hardy so much that he told his parents he was going to kill them. But his parents said, "Oh, no! If you do that, they’ll kill us!" So he said, Well, I’ll just join the army.

He enlisted with Forrest’s Cavalry, whose mission at that point in time was to intercept Federal troops coming out of Memphis and stop them from meeting up with Grant. They did catch up with the Yankees in Mississippi, and fought them out from Tupelo in what has been called the Battle of Harrisburg.

Dr. Morris (left), narrator of this book, and his brother John, standing, with Robert Morris II, writer and editor of this book, seated. They were visiting White Rose Cemetery in Gibson, Tennessee, the day after the family had surprised Dr. Morris with the first draft, and were obtaining dates of ancestors from tombstones. Photo by LLM.

Dr. Morris (left), narrator of this book, and his brother John, standing, with Robert Morris II, writer and editor of this book, seated. They were visiting White Rose Cemetery in Gibson, Tennessee, the day after the family had surprised Dr. Morris with the first draft, and were obtaining dates of ancestors from tombstones. Photo by LLM.

I asked him one time: Grandpa, could you see any of ’em? Oh, yeah, when the smoke would rise, you’d see ’em walking along. Would you shoot? Yeah, just crack down on ’em! You reckon you killed any? I just don’t know; but he said the corn in that field was cut down just like it had been mowed. I also heard him say once that seven or eight boys from Gibson County were lying dead there on the ground after the battle. Forrest’s Cavalry had the practice of letting one man out of every so many dismount and hold horses while the others fought. As I remember Grandpa telling it, the day that the battle occurred happened to be his day to handle the horses, but he traded places with someone, because sometimes the horses would stampede, and he would rather take his chances fighting. Grandpa had fired 30 rounds or so when he reached over in his pocket to get a mini-ball to reload, and a bullet struck him in the left elbow.

Furd Hudson found him on the battlefield and carried him on his horse to a big lawn. There he was bandaged up, and since he had lost so much blood, he was put in a boxcar and taken to Okolona, Mississippi.

At Okolona, Grandpa was carried to the operating table three times. The first time, they said, Well, he’s lost so much blood, he’ll die anyway, so they didn’t operate. The second time, he had an infection with gangrene, and they decided to burn it out with acid rather than operate. The third time, they said he couldn’t stand an operation; he’d die anyway. But he said, No, I’m going back home to Tennessee—and he did. He went down and stayed with the Gays in Mississippi, and later (I don’t know how many months later) he came home on a horse.

(As a teenager, I once rode with Grandpa to Shiloh National Military Park for Decoration Day. After spending the night in a nearby town, we got up early and toured the grounds. When Grandpa saw that the bodies of Confederate soldiers lay in unmarked trenches, while each Federal soldier had a marker, and some of the officers had tall marble monuments, he had me go back to the car with him and head straight home. I had to miss the bands and the decorated floats that were going to come down the Tennessee River later that day.)²

Back in Gibson County, Grandpa and his family had a hard life. Only their poorest animals, and strays that the Yankees didn’t want, were left behind. They had to take these animals and try to make a crop, grazing them in the pastures and cane bottoms. They boiled the dirt under the smokehouse to get salt; they also parched corn and used that for coffee. Grandpa told me many a time: Boy, you don’t know what hard times are!

Robert Hardy Hunt, M.D., maternal grandfather of Dr. Morris. R. H. Hunt was born in 1845 and fought in the Battle of Harrisburg at age 16. Someone has written “1873” on the reverse, but that would make the man in the picture only 28 years old, whereas he appears to be 48 or even older here.

Robert Hardy Hunt, M.D., maternal grandfather of Dr. Morris. R. H. Hunt was born in 1845 and fought in the Battle of Harrisburg at age 16. Someone has written 1873 on the reverse, but that would make the man in the picture only 28 years old, whereas he appears to be 48 or even older here.

The Hunt family worried about Robert Hardy. How was he going to make a living, since his arm wasn’t healing and constantly bothered him? (In fact it never did fully heal; the skin would peel off and blood would ooze out. I think the shattered pieces of bone had worked out, and he actually broke his arm a second time in mid-life when Papa and some other men were trying to top some trees in front of his house. They had a rope attached to a limb; it was taut and Grandpa’s arm was resting on it. The tree limb fell, jerking the rope up and popping his bone in two. But they put his arm in a right-angle splint, and it healed.)

Anyway, Grandpa finally went to medical school up in Nashville, received further training under a Doctor Turley (or some name like that),³ then began practicing medicine on his own in Gibson. This he did for over 50 years.

When Grandpa first established himself as a doctor in Gibson, he lived in the third house down from where the school stands today. It is a frame building, probably one of the oldest houses in Gibson. Then he bought a farm of some 100 to 110 acres, across the street from where the school was later built, and in 1889 he constructed the white house that still stands today, later adding the columns and the wrap-around porch. Here he lived the rest of his life.

Dr. Hunt was a man of profound religious faith, a Baptist like the Morrises. He was matter-of-fact, yes or no; he said, What you say, let that be it! He wouldn’t diddle with you at all; he didn’t see any need of telling you a dozen times. I’ve heard him talk to patients over the telephone, saying, Yes, I’ll come, or No, I don’t believe I can get there. That’s the way he was.

The date of original construction of Dr. Hunt’s house, 1889, is visible here, as are the columns and wraparound porch added later. Photo by LLM.

The date of original construction of Dr. Hunt’s house, 1889, is visible here, as are the columns and wraparound porch added later. Photo by LLM.

He carried on his practice in the farming community in and around Gibson. Back then everyone traveled either on horseback or in a buggy or wagon. So it would take Dr. Hunt two to three, or even four hours to make a call down to Eldad and get back. But when I got to be six or eight years old, I would ride behind him on the horse, his medicine and equipment in bags slung across the saddle horn. (At that time he had long whiskers, down to his waist, and when he rode on the horse, they would flow back over his shoulders. Later in life, though, he cut his beard shorter, and in his last years he kept only a mustache.) I’ve also ridden many a time in the buggy with him; I’ve seen him lance a finger outdoors, the patient’s hand resting on the buggy wheel, and Dr. Hunt using a pocketknife. He had good common sense and reason, and he had marked stamina, in spite of a hernia and hemorrhoids (they didn’t operate on such things then), which he put up with all his life. I remember seeing him push his hernia back in and strap on an old ball truss. He took these troubles as a matter of course. He didn’t want to change his way of living, and he didn’t.

Dr. Hunt had four children. Two of them died in infancy and two lived, a boy and a girl. The girl, Bernice, became my mother; the boy was my uncle, Guy Hunt.

My grandmother, Lisa Hurt Hunt, died soon after giving birth to her last child, who died also. Guy and Bernice were still small when this happened, and Dr. Hunt took them to Milan to stay, I think, with Aunt Emma (Emma Robertson, his sister). Before very long, Dr. Hunt got married again, to Mrs. Mattie Scott of Memphis. This was during the yellow fever epidemic; a lot of people were sick and dying. Her father was a school-teacher—a principal, I think—who had been murdered. They always thought maybe he had expelled a boy from school; one night he was called to the door, and when he opened it, he was shot to